


We Might As Well Get Good at It

by jadelennox



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen, Giles Ficathon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-02-01
Updated: 2004-02-01
Packaged: 2017-10-02 08:23:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadelennox/pseuds/jadelennox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The evil that men do lives after them, but the good is oft interred with their bones. But vampires aren't buried, and Spike less then most, fallen instead into fire and the emptiness of the former Hellmouth. So what happens to their good deeds?</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Might As Well Get Good at It

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place after Angel 5.11, "Damage".
> 
> For the [Giles Ficathon](http://www.livejournal.com/users/wolfling/156930.html?#cutid1). For [](http://marguerite-26.livejournal.com/profile)[**marguerite_26**](http://marguerite-26.livejournal.com/). Prompt: Character: Spike, Action: Giles smoking, Type: Maybe something dark? Does matter much. Slash is good, but not necessary. Original note: Bah. This is so ridiculously late that it's (a) bad, and (b) unbeta'd. I'm sorry, [](http://marguerite-26.livejournal.com/profile)[**marguerite_26**](http://marguerite-26.livejournal.com/). I had some good ideas, but they didn't flow. I hope it's at least a little okay.
> 
> [](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/)  
> This work by jadelennox is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/).

Rupert Giles, last of the Watchers, dug the heels of his hands into his eyes until white supernovas flared and died. He'd had scarcely three days to prepare for something he couldn't recall in the history of the Watcher's Council, and sorting through his few precious books was useless. If only he had access to the damned Council library! Though Watcher training would surely have mentioned a completely sociopathic, psychopathic, scarcely lucid feral child becoming a slayer. The Watchers would have --

_God._ They'd have found her, killed her, and moved on to the next slayer without a qualm. _What a tempting thought. Yet here I am trying to build something clean. Something **better** than the old Council._ He laughed out loud, bleakly. _Besides, too many people know she's coming here. I couldn't do it without the girls finding out._ Well, wasn't that lovely? What kept him honest was the watching eyes of a gaggle of untrained slayers. Good to know his moral compass was so well oriented.

Bugger this. The safe room for Dana was as complete as it would ever be, his magical supplies for psychotropic spells were prepared, and the pharmocopaeia was full of sedatives. He could stare at these wretched volumes he'd found in used bookstalls and on Ebay until he turned blind, but he'd learn nothing more at this point. He unlocked the file cabinet under his desk and pulled out a bottle of Glenmorangie and a tumbler. Giles tossed back one glass -- _Tossing back good whiskey like water; what a slapping offence. At least I used to do this with crap liquor._ \-- and poured himself another. He moved to relock the cabinet, then paused, and reached into the back, under a pile of legal paperwork. Ah, that half pack of Camels he'd bought on the way home from dropping Buffy and Dawn at the airport. Saying goodbye had only launched him into a short debauch, that time, since he knew it was temporary. Theoretically.

A bottle of single malt and a pack of cigs. With the girls out slaying for the evening, and Andrew on his way back from California, he didn't have to be the responsible one for a little while. He'd have to air out the room before the girls came home, but that wouldn't be a problem.

* * *

Giles shook his head to clear it and pried open his eyes. What was that sound? _Oh, Lord, the van. Already?_ If Dana was here and he hadn't cleaned up -- _Damn._ Sitting up made his head swim, and -- _Oh, shit_ \-- knocked an empty Glenmorangie bottle over into a full ashtray. _I'm a pathetic old man, I am. Can't even hold my liquor anymore._

The van parked in the hostel's drive while Giles rushed about the room straightening. He'd hidden the evidence of last night's insubstantial bacchanal and thrown on a crumpled jacket. As front door opened, he swilled some water around to clear the foulness from his mouth. The three slayers who entered Giles only knew vaguely. They were from Robin's training group up in Fresno; he'd asked Andrew to borrow them for the trip back. When he'd flown the boy out at Wesley's request, he'd trusted him enough to obtain the new slayer, especially backed up with muscle. Returning with an insane superhero alone, though, wasn't really in Andrew's capacity.

"Hey, Mr. Giles." Their greetings were more subdued than usual, and they looked weary. Well, yes, he supposed, a three day cross-country drive in a cramped van might deplete even a slayer's energy. They sounded almost like he felt. Giles moved to intercept Dana's stretcher, and was stopped by Andrew's voice across the room.

"I've come to report, Mr. Giles."

Andrew looked like death warmed over. Huge circles under his eyes, and he was twitchier than usual. _Poor boy. He's learning, but he's still Andrew. This trip was too much for him; I should have gone myself._ "Surely it can wait until you've had a bit of a rest, Andrew? And I should help the girls settle Dana in. You told me everything of importance when you rang last night, I assume?"

"Of course! But, well, no," Andrew said. "The trip back was bad."

Despite his lurking headache, Giles could be alert. "Bad? How so? Were you attacked?"

"No, nothing like that. Sorry for the false alarm on your Spidey sense. But Dana," Andrew hesitated. "It's hard to keep a slayer drugged. And when she was coming out of it, some of the times she said some pretty scary things. I mean, scary for the girls. I had to reassure them that they were safe with me. Which they were. Safe, I mean."

Giles stepped forward and put his hand on Andrew's shoulder. "We'll look after her. You did a good job, getting her back here safely."

Andrew's proud smile practically glowed, his energy apparently returning. "Oh, and Mr. Giles, there was good news, too. But we didn't have a secure channel, so I didn't want to tell you over the phone. You never know who could be listening: demons, or lawyers, or hive-minded aliens, or uruk-hai servants of the dark one, or --"

"Andrew," Giles interrupted. "Good news?"

"Spike's alive," Andrew said, boucing slightly. "Isn't it wonderful?"

* * *

Spike. Alive.

Giles puttered around the hostel, settling his tired slayers in with cocoa, mediating a few exhausted squabbles in the shower line.

The last time Giles had seen Spike, he'd been trotting off to the Sunnydale High basement, where he'd helped fight off an army of Turok-han before saving the world. Not that long after Giles' muffed attempt to have Spike killed. In the perpetual balance scale of their lives, where did saving the world place Spike?

_The evil that men do lives after them, but the good is oft interred with their bones. But vampires aren't buried, and Spike less then most, fallen instead into fire and the emptiness of the former Hellmouth. So what happens to their good deeds? How do the weigh against the bad? Will Spike be remembered as William the Bloody, slayer of Slayers, lover of mad Drusilla? Or will Spike, Champion of Sunnydale take bloody Will's place in the Watcher's annals?_

_Metaphorically. Since there are no watcher's annals any longer._

Giles settled Dana into her safe room, talking Andrew through the patterns of the locks and magical wards, testing him, before they closed the room together. No sense in letting his own confusion disrupt Dana's safety or Andrew's training. The boy had come so far. True, he kept calling himself Jean Grey and calling Giles Professor X, but he was learning, and even helping. From servant of self-serving evil to guestage to ameteur watcher. There was hope yet.

_We short-lived mortals have far less time to redefine ourselves than demons. Who will I be to those who come next? Not Ripper, the hedonistic boy who raised demons for shits and giggles. Eyghon's attack on Jenny aside, Ripper &amp; Co. had left no mark on the world; their kind never did. But will I be Rupert Giles, the careful watcher who oversaw the training of the longest-lived slayer in generations, presided over the defeat of countless apocalypses and the distribution of slayer power, and rebuilt a pure and incorruptible whole out of the ruins of the Watcher's Council? Or Rupert Giles, the ineffectual old man who let his slayer die twice, let the Council fall, and watched an entire Southern California town fall into hell? The shopkeeper driven out of business by grief, the mage who let a smart and loving girl grow up to nearly destroy the world? Even as a librarian, I didn't do my job -- how many students at Sunnydale High had learned research skills on my watch?_

Andrew laid out the mugwort and henbane as Giles prepared the spell that would give Dana a dreamless and rest-filled sleep. The boy couldn't stop talking about Spike. "Now he's all Dark Knight returns, back from the dead and helping the helpless. In service to the Powers that Be, even! And he hasn't even told Buffy he's alive, even though it's been months."

_Will the world remember that Spike saved the world for love of Buffy -- hell, once he did for love of Dru? Or will it just remember that he saved the world? Would Spike rather be remembered as a hero, fighting with the white hats? Before he got his soul? Before he got his chip, even, that once? Or would he rather the universe know him as a fool for love?_

_Do I want to be remembered as someone who put the future of the world over the needs of my slayer? Someone who'd sacrifice her sister, her lover, her trust for the greater good?_

_Or not?_

In the end, it didn't matter. He had a junior Watcher to train, a sociopath to heal, and a Council to rebuild.

"That's right, Andrew," Giles said, as Andrew drew the runes. "You're doing great."


End file.
